The Pennsylvania Game Commission is embroiled in a battle of politics vs. biology regarding its management strategy for white-tailed deer.

“What we’re doing (with deer management) isn’t working,” state Sen. Rich Alloway, who chairs the Senate Game & Fisheries Committee, told the Lancaster Journal. “I know that we have to be concerned about the forest and the habitat, but I feel the pendulum has swung so far out of balance in reducing the deer herd.”

PGC officials say they’re going about their management strategy for different parts of the state based on biological data.

Conflicts like this certainly aren’t unusual. Some states have advisory boards and the wildlife agency sets regulations. In others, the legislature handles things after input (or, sometimes not), from agency officials. It can make for some tenuous dancing with folks who know little to nothing about wildlife management trying to buck or ride herd on wildlife agency biologists.